We caught up with the RSPB's Emma Marsh to explore what this year's Big Garden Birdwatch results reveal and to dig into new research that's changing how we think about feeding birds, highlighting how we need to adapt our practices to support birds safely.

[birds chirping] Big Garden Birdwatch 2026, we had an amazing 650,000 people across the whole UK taking part over that weekend.

We also had a record-breaking 143,000 pupils and teachers taking part in the Big Schools Birdwatch as well.

So that was just absolutely brilliant.

And in total, they spotted more than nine million birds, and over 80 species were counted across the UK.

And drum roll, the winner is the house sparrow.

It remains at number one, and the blue tit remains at number two.

Mm-hmm.

So I went into the commercial sector working in mobile data and ended up working back [laughs] with the police, putting mobile data back into their cars.

So that was dispatching police officers out and about on the road.

So nothing that I'd ever done before, but it was my first kind of journey into the world of technology.

But again, I was so longing for something that was to do with the environment, that was to do with climate, that was to do with nature, just really wanting to get back to that.

So I took a year out, sold the flat, worked with HDRA as was then, now Garden Organics, so doing in the horticultural field, worked with BTCV, which was the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers, for a bit, worked at a vineyard for a bit, just kind of really building up my v- my skills-

Mm.

And one of the things I shared was I have misophonia.

So to help us understand what's going on, what the data is telling us and how you can get involved this weekend, we're joined now by the RSPB's Executive Director, Emma Marsh.

Birdlife is really struggling right now.

To put it into context, we are one of the most nature depleted countries in the world.

We're the bottom of the G7, the bottom of G20.

That is each of the four countries that make up the UK.

All of us are some of the most nature depleted countries in the world.

This is really pushing our ecosystems to the brink.

We caught up with the RSPB's Executive Director Emma Marsh, herself a keen gardener, to find out how we can give our feathered friends a helping hand.

So I grew up in a farm in Warwickshire.

My dad was the farm worker and we had a tied cottage.

My mum and dad grew all their own fruit, their own veg, we had pigs and chickens in the back garden and generally if we didn't grow it we didn't eat it.

I started off as a child being the kind of child who loves a good mud pack so that was my first memory of having an empty ice cream tub filled with mud and just being gloriously happy in it.

And then I got to my teens, and that mud lost its attraction, as you can imagine.

And I disengaged from it for a bit.